A petition has been filed before the Lahore High Court seeking a permanent ban on Facebook, a social networking website, in Pakistan pointing out introduction of another anti-Islam competition by the website.

The website had already faced an interim ban in country for holding a blasphemous caricature competition.

The petition was filed by Chairman Judicial Activism Panel (JAP) Muhammad Azhar Siddique stating that the website Facebook has again announced a contest named Everybody Burn-Quran Day and also displayed blasphemous pictures of Khana-e-Kaaba. In view of the facts submitted above, it is respectfully prayed to block/ban Facebook permanently in Pakistan.

He also prayed that the authorities in Pakistan be directed to this effect that no material with respect to blasphemy of any religion be published, displayed, visualised or aired in country.

Doves....Not

Based on article from islamophobia-watch.com

On September 11, members of the Dove World Outreach Center – a Gainesville, Florida church – plan to burn copies of the Koran to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The protest is just the latest in a series of provocative actions from the self-described New Testament Church, which seems as interested in getting attention as it is in sharing the Word with the world.

4thought.tv
Channel 4 7:55pm
Monday 2nd August 2010.

Sexuality has become a major battle ground for the world religions. 4thought.tv offers a series of radically different perspectives on homosexuality and sin.

Stephen Green, national director of the lobby group Christian Voice, quotes from the Book of Revelations in the Bible to support his belief that God's plan for sexuality is heterosexual. Green believes that there has been a homosexualisation of British society, and that the gay lifestyle is inherently hedonistic and destructive.

Airing directly after this film will be the radically different view of Rev Rowland Jide Macaulay who believes that those who use the Bible to condemn homosexuality are hypocritical - surely they should also advocate the stoning of adulterers.

An Iranian woman convicted of adultery has been sentenced to death by stoning.

Sakineh Mohamamadi e Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz, was accused of having extramarital relations with two men who ended up killing her husband.

Infidelity is illegal in Iran, and usually punished with lashes and prison time. While the Iranian penal code allows for the death sentence in infidelity cases, execution by stoning is rare.

The case began in 2005 when Ashtiani was arrested for having illicit relationships. She was convicted by a local court a year later and sentenced to 99 lashes and an unknown amount of time in prison, where she has remained since.

Following the original case, however, Ashtiani and her boyfriends were accused of murdering her husband. Ashtiani was convicted and sentenced to death by stoning.

She has denied any wrongdoing but reportedly asked local authorities for a pardon, stating simply If I have done any wrong, I repent. The request for clemency was denied.

Update: EU speak out against stoning

7th July 2010. Based on article from huliq.com

While Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani and her attorney wait anxiously to see whether Iranian authorities carry out the sentence of death by stoning for adultery, worldwide pressure continues to mount to halt the execution, with the European Union the latest to speak out.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton has called on Iran to halt the stoning of Ashtiani along with two other scheduled executions. Mohammad Reza Haddadi was sentenced to hanging for a murder he committed as a minor, and Zeynab Jalalian, a Kurd, is awaiting execution as an enemy of God.

Ashton had especially harsh words for Ashtiani's punishment, calling stoning a particularly cruel method of execution which amounts to torture. She also noted that Ashtiani's and Haddadi.'s exedcutions violate international conventions on civil, political, and children's rights.

Comment: Stop Stoning and Sharia Laws!

7th July 2010. By Maryam Namazie
See also iransolidarity.blogspot.com

11 July is the International Day against Stoning – a day we would do well to mark especially given that Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani faces imminent death by stoning for adultery.

Appealing on her behalf, her two children have said: Today we reach out to the people of the world. It is now five years that we have lived in fear and in horror, deprived of motherly love. Is the world so cruel that it can watch this catastrophe and do nothing?

Don't stand by and watch. Let's end this once and for all.

To show your condemnation against stoning and support for Sakine, during the week of 5-11 July, take stones to your city centres, universities, media outlets, workplaces… and put them in a public place, with a message in support of Sakine and against stoning and executions. See also iransolidarity.blogspot.com

With daily reports of such brutality, some will still not stop asserting that Sharia law is misunderstood and wrongly associated with medieval punishments - yet this is what Sharia's penal code demands. The image of Sharia law is draconian because the reality is such.

Update: Stoning Cancelled

9th July 2010. Based on article from news.bbc.co.uk

The authorities in Iran have announced that a woman convicted of adultery will not be stoned to death.

But it is not clear whether they have lifted the death sentence against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who has been in prison in Tabriz since 2006.

There has been an international campaign to prevent her being stoned.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said stoning was a medieval punishment and that its continued use showed Iran's disregard for human rights. If the punishment is carried out, it will disgust and appal the watching world, he told a news conference in London.

Offsite: 15 more cases

9th July 2010. See article from guardian.co.uk

Twelve Iranian women and three men are on death row awaiting execution by stoning despite an apparent last-minute reprieve for a mother of two who had been facing the horrific sentence after being convicted of adultery.

...Read the full article

Update: No Stoning But...

10th July 2010. Based on article from guardian.co.uk

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani will not be stoned, the regime has said, but now her family fear she will be hanged instead

Iran has also imposed a media blackout over the case of a 43-year-old mother of two who was sentenced to be stoned to death and whose fate is still unclear despite an apparent reprieve.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is still facing execution by hanging after being convicted of adultery, her son told the Guardian today.

Newspapers, agencies and TV channels in Iran have been banned from reporting Mohammadi Ashtiani's death sentence, despite an international campaign launched by her children, which has been joined by politicians and celebrities from all over the world.

Last night the Iranian embassy in London issued an opaque statement saying that Mohammadi Ashtiani would not be stoned to death. According to information from the relevant judicial authorities in Iran, she will not be executed by stoning punishment, it said.

Update: Under Pressure

24th July 2010.  Based on article from guardian.co.uk

Iran has put fresh pressure on the woman it last month sentenced to death by stoning, demanding the names of those involved in the campaign for her release.

The case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has drawn international attention after her children launched a campaign for her release. After a global outcry last month, Iran's judiciary said Sakineh would not be put to death by stoning, but still faced execution by hanging.

Ashtiani has been interrogated inside Tabriz prison over the names of the people who have been in touch with her family and the way her photo has been distributed among the media, the Guardian has learned.

Sakineh's photo, which has been distributed all over the world, has become a defining image for human rights activists campaigning against stoning in Iran.

Sakineh has been under big pressure since the world has paid attention to her case, a source close to her family told the Guardian. Recently she was questioned and asked to advise her children to remain silent, otherwise they will be arrested too. International attention is the only hope for Sakineh's release, the source added.

Update: London Rallies to Ashtiani's cause

26th July 2010. Based on article from bbc.co.uk

A rally has been held in London to protest over a woman sentenced to death for adultery in Iran.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was originally told she would be killed by stoning, but the penalty was put on hold following international anger.

Human rights campaigners gathered in Trafalgar Square, London, to protest against medievalism and barbarity.

They called on the international community to make the world stand still over Ashtiani's treatment.

Demonstrators in Trafalgar Square waved placards reading: Turn all stones towards the Islamic regime of Iran.

Others at the event on Saturday held banners calling for the abolition of the death penalty, while members of the public signed a petition against the punishment.

Campaigners said similar demonstrations were being held in more than 30 countries to put pressure on Iran in the hope of securing the release of Ashtiani, who has been in jail in the north-western city of Tabriz since 2005.

Update: Ashtiani's Lawyer Arrested

26th July 2010. Based on article from guardian.co.uk

The lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who faced death by stoning, now faces re-arrest and his wife and brother-in-law have also been held by Iran's authorities.

Authorities in Iran have issued an arrest warrant for an acclaimed Iranian lawyer and arrested his wife and brother-in-law over his involvement in the case of a woman sentenced to death by stoning.

Lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei's office in Tehran was ransacked, and he was interrogated in Evin prison for four hours on Saturday over his human rights activities and involvement in the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.

He was released, then called back for further questioning before being set free. Authorities then issued an arrest warrant. When they were unable to find him the authorities arrested his wife, Fereshteh Halimi and her brother Farhad Halimi to try to force him to surrender. However, it is still unclear whether Mostafaei has been arrested or he has managed to evade officials.

Mostafaei is not a normal lawyer, he is also a human rights activist and he has represented several stoning cases and juvenile offenders in Iran, said Soheila Vahdati, an Iranian activist who is based in California.

Mostafaei writes regularly for Iranian media and his blog and his role in making Iranians aware of the human rights abuses in Iran has made it difficult for the Iranian regime to tolerate him anymore, she said.

Update: Hanging

31st July 2010. Based on article from guardian.co.uk

The Iranian woman whose sentence of death by stoning was commuted to hanging after an international campaign, has sent a message from inside Tabriz prison calling for further support so that she might be reunited with her children.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, said she thinks of nothing other than hugging her children and that she was mentally broken when authorities flogged her 99 times in front of her then 17-year-old son, Sajad.

She thanked the world for launching the campaign for her release but said part of her heart is frozen. Every night before I go to sleep, I think who would throw stones at me?, she said.

The message was read by Mina Ahadi, of the Iran Committee against Stoning (ICAS), at a press conference in Conway Hall, in London, this morning .

At the conference, ICAS presented a document showing Mohammadi Ashtiani had in fact been convicted of adultery. She was originally sentenced to 99 lashes, but her case was reopened when a court in Tabriz suspected her of murdering her husband. She was acquitted, but the adultery charge was reviewed and the death by stoning sentence handed down on the basis of judge's knowledge.

The documents provided by ICAS show that two of five judges who investigated Mohammadi Ashtiani's case concluded that there was no forensic evidence of adultery. It's shocking, she's sentenced to death by stoning because three judges think, just think, that you had an illicit relationship outside marriage, said Maryam Namazie of the ICAS.

Bishop Agathon, 75 clergy and nearly 150,000 Copts from parishes all over the Diocese of Maghagha & Edwah have staged a sit-in in Maghagha since Sunday 25 July 2010, protesting against the intransigence of the Governor of Minya.

During the sit-in, the Copts held banners asking for their rights to have a church, amidst chants of With our soul and our blood, we will build our church.

Governor Ahmad Dia-Eldin has suspended the licence obtained for the renewal of the diocese in Maghagha, including the church after the old complex was pulled down as agreed. The pretext given was that the 45 sq. metres rooms where the Bishop lives and the public toilettes were not pulled down as well. The Bishop said that during negotiations, the Governor agreed verbally in front of all those present to keep the Bishop's rooms until new ones have been built. Otherwise where will I put my head to sleep and keep my papers? Said His Grace: The Governor now changed his mind and insists on adhering to the written agreement without his 'giveaways' and requires as a condition their immediate removal.

After nearly three and a half years of negotiations and appeals to President Mubarak, an agreement was reached early March 2010, between the Governor and the Bishop. The signed conditions were that the old buildings of the Coptic Diocese of Maghagha including the falling-apart church, which was built in 1934 through a Royal decree, were to be pulled down and in exchange the Governor of Minya would issue a licence for the renewal of the Diocese on adjacent land owned by the Church.

After the church was pulled down, the Bishop and congregation celebrate masses since March 16, 2010, in a make shift tent in the summer heat exceeding 45C. Where stones are hurled inside the tent at us by Muslims, said one local Copt.

Afghanistan Council of Ministers shut down the private television network Emrooz charging it with fomenting religious differences and disrupting national unity.

An announcement issued by the office of the president states that the continued activity of this television network was highly hazardous to the government's rule and therefore the Ministry of Intelligence and Culture was charged to immediately shut them down.

Najibollah Kabuli, member of Afghanistan's parliament and head of Emrooz television condemned the move saying that this action is a result of pressure from Shiite religious leaders and his own opposition to Iranian policies.

In the past months, a number of demonstrations were staged in several cities of Afghanistan to protest the alleged execution of tens of Afghan nationals in Iran. The demonstrators expressed severe anti-Iran positions in the course of the demonstrations condemning Iranian leaders and burning images of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei. Reportedly, Najibollah Kabuli was the organizer of the Kabul demonstrations and he also participated in the event.

In the face of supposed new evidence of the increasing levels of children sexually abusing other children the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has called for both major political parties to immediately commit to a comprehensive review of the classification system across all media.

ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace said the classification system is broken and that the lack of effective regulation of what is being viewed and read in the community must be acknowledged as at least part of the reason behind the appalling growth in sexualised and sexually abusive behaviour in children.

Revelations by the Australian Crime Commission's National Indigenous Task Force that between 40 and 90% of sexual offending against children was committed by other children – and that the problem is not confined to indigenous communities – should deeply concern all Australians and demand an urgent response from our political leaders, Wallace said.

There has been widespread acknowledgement of the role of the media environment in sexualising children but despite inquiries and talkfests, nothing gets done.

Children don't learn sexualised behaviour in a vacuum and we know that viewing pornography is often associated with this problem. However it goes much further than this, with children continually being bombarded with overtly sexual messages by everything from billboards to films to music videos. When the problem is getting this bad it is time for real action to be taken.

Wallace said a comprehensive review is needed because Australia's classification system has not kept pace with technology and is effectively a toothless tiger even when standards are breached – with no real penalties for those involved.

Growth in technology has meant that Australia's classification system doesn't even apply to a range of new media content, such as mobile phone applications. And where the classification system does apply it is completely ineffective – with standards rarely being enforced and the penalties being laughable even when they are.

Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, author of international bestselling novel The Bookseller of Kabul, has been ordered to pay 125,000 kroner in damages for invasion of privacy.

The Bookseller of Kabul is descriptive of the lives of fundamental Islamic people and touches on aspects such as honor killings and prostitution, as well as the main character's and his family's thoughts.

According to Celebrity Café magazine, Suraia Rais, wife of the real bookseller, accused Seierstad of using inaccurate information in her book regarding her family's personal lives and relationships.

Oslo District Court (Tingrett) decided that The information (in the book) about Rais's thoughts and feelings is sensitive, reports Dagbladet. The court also ruled against Seirstad's publisher, Cappelen Damm, who is also obliged to pay the plaintiff a further 125,000.

Seirstad's lawyer, Cato Schiøtz, says he was astonished by the ruling and was determined to advise his client to appeal the decision

Seierstad wrote the novel after living with the Rais family for three months in 2002 after the fall of the Taliban.

A few more clues about the contended sensitivities may be found in a review on UK Amazon: Penetrating, prejudicial and convincing - a unique read

Sultan Khan is the head of a prosperous Kabul family. A bookseller by trade, he has seen his books burnt by one regime, defaced by another, then burnt again. As the Taliban regime falls in 2001, he meets Norwegian war correspondent, Seierstad. They agree that Seierstad should live with his family for several months. This book is the stunning result.

It reads like fiction -- penetrating, prejudicial and convincing but, although names have been changed, it is an honest, warts and all, account of life in Kabul. Khan, seemingly urbane, educated and liberal, is the tyrannical head of large family – mother, siblings, two wives and five children. Khan's subjugation of the women in his family is shocking from a Western point of view: As Seierstad moves into his home, Khan takes a second wife, a sexy, uneducated sixteen-year-old, dishonouring and cutting to the quick his loyal and educated first wife: his youngest sister is treated as little more than a slave. And it is this that is the meat of the book; the personal power struggles that exist within the family – struggles which Khan will always win.

The shocking portrait of women's lives, even under the liberalising regime of Afghan leader Karzai, is frightening, repulsive even from a western perspective, but there is nothing here to suggest that Khan is anything other than a typical head of the family. His mother, sisters, wives and daughters, seem to lose identity under the burqa, which hides not only their femininity and personality, but also their imaginations. Not here will you find justification of the regime: these women resent, in different ways, their position.

In an incident which highlights the total collapse of security and the rule of law in Pakistan, two Christian brothers, who were accused of distributing blasphemous pamphlets, were shot dead outside a court in Faisalabad.

According to reports, two unidentified gunmen shot dead Pastor Rashid Emmanuel and his brother Sajjad, and also left their police escort critically wounded, as they were leaving the court after a hearing .

Both brothers were rushed to hospital where they were pronounced dead, The Daily Times quoted a local official, as saying.

Both Emmanuel and Rashid were arrested earlier this month along with some others on charges of igniting religious hatred by distributing sacrilegious pamphlets.

A senior church official in Faisalabad, James Aftab, said that the men had been implicated in a fake case.

Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti blamed the local mosques in Faislabad for the attack on the two brothers.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has taken serious note of the incident and directed Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to take all steps to ensure the safety of minorities in Faislabad and maintain law and order in the city.

Update: Minorities Minister Accused of Blasphemy

28th July 2010. Based on article from continentalnews.net

Allama Ahmed Mian Hammadi, a Pakistani Muslim cleric, has claimed that Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Minorities has himself committed blasphemy by branding the recently murdered Christian brothers as victims of Pakistan blasphemy laws.

Bhatti had spoken out about the murder of Rashid Emmanuel and his brother Sajid, by unidentified masked gunmen inside a courthouse in Faisalabad. The brothers had been accused of supposedly blaspheming Muhammad, a charge they had both denied

According to Hammadi's statement, published in Daily Jasarat, a Pakistani Urdu daily newspaper, the Muslim cleric said that Muslims cannot tolerate blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad: It is not a cruelty to kill blasphemers, rather blasphemy itself is such an enormous brutality that the one who commits it neither has got a right to live in this world nor is there any pardon for the blasphemer. Muslims won't tolerate even a slightest blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad. If Shahbaz Bhatti committed blasphemy he would be beheaded.

A morality crackdown has seen Malaysian Islamic authorities hand out caning and jail sentences for illicit drinking and sex, and launch raids on homes and clubs in the glare of media flashlights.

Despite the highly publicised cases, every weekend Kuala Lumpur's top clubs are packed with fashionably dressed youngsters including Muslim Malays -- many offspring of the nation's elite -- socialising and drinking openly.

I'm a bit more wary after all these cases but it doesn't really affect my mood to go out and party, says Muaz Omar, a civil servant who goes to pubs with friends to watch live band performances. People who drink still do go out because even private parties at home are subjected to raids, there is no longer a safe haven.

We don't accept any behaviour that is not condoned by Islam, Che Mat Che Ali, the head of the Islamic affairs department in Kuala Lumpur, tells AFP.

The department has rounded up nearly 500 individuals in Kuala Lumpur so far this year for offences including drinking and khalwat, or close proximity which bars Muslims from being alone with a member of the opposite sex.

...Read the full article

Comic fans beware: The man who believes that god hates...well...everyone but his family is headed to San Diego Comic-Con on July 22.

Fred Phelps on the official Westboro Baptist Church site, wrote:

If these people would spend even some of the energy that they spend on these comic books, reading the Bible, well no high hopes here. They have turned comic book characters into idols, and worship them they do! Isaiah 2:8 Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: 9 And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not. It is time to put away the silly vanities and turn to God like you mean it.

The destruction of this nation is imminent - so start calling on Batman and Superman now, see if they can pull you from the mess that you have created with all your silly idolatry.

Hopefully the creative guys at Comic-Con can come up with an amusing counter action.

Update: Bite my shiny metal ass

26th July 2010. Based on article from inewp.com

Fortunately, those at Comic-Con knew about Westboro's plans and prepared to meet them head on in a counter-demonstration. Obviously, Phelp's followers were massacred.

Led by an individual in a Bender costume from the cartoon Futurama, Comic-Con nerds dressed in various outfits held humorous signs that effectively counter-demonstrated.

Memorable moments include Bender megaphoning Bite my shiny metal ass to the Westboro congregation while holding a sign that read Kill All Humans and a person in a Buddy Jesus getup holding up a God Loves Everybody sign contradicting Westboro's signs that read God Hates Fags, God is Your Enemy, You're Going To Hell. Signs like God Hates Kittens and God Hates Jedi also accompanied the counter-protest.

The unexplained disappearance of a Coptic priest's wife in Upper Egypt has led a sit-in staged by thousands of Copts at the Coptic Patriarchate in Cairo, to protest what they consider collusion by the state security services. There are rumors that Islamists have abducted her. They promised to continue with their sit-in until the state security divulges her whereabouts.

Nearly three thousand demonstrators, joined by clergy, protested the lack of protection for Copts by state security, chanting They abducted the wife of our priest, tomorrow they will abduct us and Where are our abducted girls or is it because they are Christians?

Police surrounded the Cathedral to prevent the demonstrators from going out to the streets.

On Monday, July 19, Father Tedaos Samaan, priest at St. Georges Church in Deir Mawas, Minya Governorate, returned home to find that his wife was missing from the previous night. He said that he was on a short visit to his parents with his toddler son, as his teacher wife Kamila Shehata was on a short placement to another school.

According to Father Tedaos, the last times he spoke to his wife was at 9.15pm when she told him that she was at home, and was on her way to overnight at her parent's home, 100 meters away. She never arrived there.

Anba Agapios, Bishop of the dioceses of Delga and Deir Mawas, deplored the treatment by officials of the state security apparatus in Minya. They told him that they have the priest's wife with them and promised to deliver her to her family within hours and then they came back and retracted their statements and their promises to him. Consequently he asked his congregations to go to Cairo and stage a sit-in at St. Mark's Cathedral, until state security acts. He appealed to Copts in all the Egyptian governorates to stand together alongside their brethren during their sit-in.

Father Tedaos said that apart from his wife, there have been five other Coptic females who were abducted from Deir Mawas in the last 50 days.

Father Tedaos appealed to President Mubarak for the return of his wife.

Bhutan's government have proposed an anti-conversion law. The amendment bill would punish proselytizing that uses coercion or other forms of inducement.

Christians fear that it is vaguely worded, and that vigilantes could use it to jail them for for charity work to feed, clothe and otherwise care for, the poor.

Now, under section 463 [of the Penal Code of Bhutan], a defendant shall be guilty of the offense of proselytization if the defendant uses coercion or other forms of inducement to cause the conversion of a person from one religion or faith to another, reported the government-run Kuensel newspaper on July 9.

There was always a virtual anti-conversion law in place, but now it is on paper too, said a senior pastor from Thimphu on condition of anonymity. Seemingly it is aimed at controlling the growth of Christianity.

Kuenlay Tshering, a member of Bhutan's Parliament and the chairperson of its Legislative Council, told Compass that the National Council had proposed that offenses under the proposal be classified as misdemeanors, punishable by one to less than three years in prison. Tshering said that the amendment bill may be passed during the next session of Parliament, after the National Assembly deliberates on it in the winter session.

Two Muslim women have claimed they were refused a bus ride because one had her face covered by a veil.

The students were in London and boarded a Metroline bus from Russell Square to Paddington. But they said when they presented their tickets the driver told them they were a threat to passengers and ordered them off the bus.

An investigation has been started by the firm as a matter of urgency.

Yasmin, who was wearing a hijab, and Atoofa, dressed in a niqab - which covers the face - were in London to hand in university work

Yasmin said at first she boarded the bus by mistake when it was not in service to ask if it was going to Paddington station, but was told by the driver to get off: About 10 minutes later... the passengers started getting on. When I went forward to show my ticket he said, 'Get off the bus'. I presumed he was still angry because I got on the bus before.

He said, 'I am not going to take you on the bus because you two are a threat.' I realised it wasn't due to me getting on the bus, this may be a racist attack.

The women complained to another bus driver who offered advice on where to complain.

A spokesman for bus operator Metroline said: We take this very seriously and will make a thorough investigation into the allegations as a matter of urgency. However, Metroline can unequivocally state that such views would not be representative of the company in any way and that we are committed to respecting equality and diversity for all.

An Italian Catholic diocese has denounced homosexual priests for their double life and said they should not be in the priesthood.

The Diocese of Rome was responding to a magazine article on three homosexual priests that gave details of alleged sexual encounters and trips to clubs.

The diocese said the honour of all the others was sullied by their behaviour.

The Church holds that all sexual activity outside marriage is sinful and regards homosexual acts as unnatural. '

The article in the conservative magazine Panorama, entitled Gay Priests' Nights on the Town, carried pictures and interviews with the men. The research was carried out over a month using hidden cameras. It recorded sexual encounters, including one in a church building.

Do you promise to be faithful to her until death do you part?.... And do you understandeth the consequences of a false declaration?... I'm waiting....

A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew.

Sabbar Kashur was sentenced to 18 months in prison after the court ruled that he was guilty of rape by deception. According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left.

When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault.

Although Kashur was initially charged with rape and indecent assault, this was changed to a charge of rape by deception as part of a plea bargain arrangement.

Handing down the verdict, Tzvi Segal, one of three judges on the case, acknowledged that sex had been consensual but said that although not a classical rape by force, the woman would not have consented if she had not believed Kashur was Jewish.

The sex therefore was obtained under false pretences, the judges said. If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated, they added.